But as she swung the light back and forth on the floor and around the large room, she spotted something that told her, yes, somebody had been here since her first search: a small candy wrapper, Jolly Rancher, in green apple flavor.
Had it been the Locksmith? Junkies might have a sweet tooth like anyone else but they would probably not crash a building with police tape around it.
The wrapper went into a bag. She collected trace from around where it had lain with an adhesive roller. She tore the sheet off and slipped it into a second bag.
She moved on, searching slowly, looking for prints of a size 11 running shoe. If he’d been observing the police activity, the front window would not do him much good, but the windows on the building’s west side would offer a good view of where she and the ECTs had staged.
She would check there, but first a thought occurred to her. Was it possible that the building did have some inhabitants — perhaps someone who’d gotten a look at the Locksmith?
Sachs started into the darker reaches of the building, leaving day-light behind and relying on her flashlight. She paused every so often to listen for the sound of footsteps, the sound of a breath, the sound of an unhappy board under shoes.
The sound of a pistol being cocked, or a knife flicking open.
29
Deep in the Bechtel Building, the man watched the flashlight beam swinging slowly back and forth.
He saw the woman pause and cock her head, listening. Moving on once more. She was cautious, as one would be in a place like this. Walking, pausing, walking on.
Lyle Spencer was a large man, six feet four inches tall and he weighed two hundred and forty pounds. He was sustained by the physical; he had been — throughout all phases of his life. Muscle, you could count on. Muscle worked.
His face was long and striking and stern, with dark eyes set off by pale skin. On his head was a dusting of close-cropped hair of gray-blond hue. His muscles were bulky, earned with old-fashioned weights on bars. He had a contempt for exercise machines but couldn’t say why. His hands were wide, fingers long. He had once broken a man’s wrist using only two of those fingers and a thumb.
Because he was here illegally and because of the clammy atmosphere inside the Bechtel Building he thought of an incident years ago, involving another woman, one he’d shot to death with a carefully placed round in the back of her head. The second slug was accurately placed too, but he was sure the first had killed her.
Spencer’s eyes were now accustomed to the dark and he moved in a general direction around behind the woman. He studied the floor before each step.
Something in the southwest corner of the manufacturing space had caught her attention. Spencer wondered what it might have been. In any event this was good. If whatever she’d seen would hold her attention for a little bit longer, he could get behind her. He looked at the floor and noted a pipe, about eighteen inches long. He lifted it silently.
He now moved through the dim showroom where years ago solidly built ovens and refrigerators and dishwashers had sat, probably all white, though maybe pale green or pink, which he believed were popular colors for domestic devices in mid-century.
Dark passages, the smell of wet stone, the smell of mold.
He recalled the scent of the blood from the woman he shot. Her husband’s too. He’d killed them both that day.
Now, he eased forward silent and studied her flashlight beam, and from the width of the bright disk on the wall he knew approximately where she was standing, examining whatever it was she was examining. If she stayed in that corner, yeah, it would be good. Though he was a large man, Lyle Spencer could move quickly. Much of his height was in leg, not torso. His strides were long.
He considered options.
There really was only one.
Get behind her.
The beam of her light was sweeping slowly over the floor. She’d be facing away from the door he was near.
Now, he told himself. And stepped forward.
30
Lyle Spencer’s world lit up with white fire.
“Drop the rod. Now. I am armed and I will fire.” Her voice was razor raw.
He turned, glaring into the brilliant light in her hand.
Ah, clever. He glanced to the side. The woman had tied up the flashlight with a grocery bag — there were dozens on the floor — and left it dangling from an old piece of skeletonized machinery to trick him. Her new flashlight wasn’t one at all. It was the app on her phone.
He shook his head in dismay and looked calmly at the muzzle of her pistol, aimed directly at him.
The rod, pointed toward the ground now, swung back and forth in his hand, the way a baseball player casually carries the bat to home plate.
“I’m a police officer. Drop the rod now. You move one step, I will fire.”
He had no doubt that she would.
Back and forth, back and forth.
She held the weapon perfectly steady. The bigger Glocks, he knew, were not light weapons.
Back and forth.
“Do it now.” Not shouted, as another cop might have done. The voice was calm, icy. Her final warning.
A moment longer. He dropped the rod, which hit the concrete and bounced, ringing twice, with the sound of a dull bell.
I’m walking along a street on the Upper East Side, my eyes on the vehicle I’m about to break into, a block away.
Seeing the model and make of the car, I can’t help but think about Englishman Joseph Bramah, who created a cylindrical key lock in the late 1700s that was so sophisticated it’s still in use today. (He offered a sizable challenge reward to anyone who could pick it. The reward stood for sixty-seven years, until the great Exhibition of 1851, where it was picked by none other than my idol, Alfred Hobbs.)
Bramah found a huge market for his lock but he wasn’t able to make them fast enough to turn a profit. So, the brilliant inventor (beer draft pumps, modern toilets, banknote presses) invented something else that turned his business around: the assembly line.
Which supposedly inspired Henry Ford, and the industrialist began using the technique to manufacture cars.
And it happens to be a descendant of Ford’s Model T that I’m about to break into just now.
If you need to crack a vehicle lock, you can often use a jiggler, also called a tryout key. They look sort of like standard pin tumbler keys but are flat. My set includes fifteen on a ring. They’re in my jacket pocket right now and I’m fingering them as I approach the car.
And, oh, yes, Officer, I’m carrying lock-picking tools with illegal intent... just for the record.
It’s quicker to use a rake and tension tool in a car lock — faster yet to yank the cylinder out with a dent puller — but neither would work here. With a jiggler, you insert it and, just like the name, work it back and forth with one hand, like you’re using the proper key. If somebody was watching you, they might wonder what you’re up to, but if you pretend to be making a phone call and absently playing with the key, you can get away with it.
Out comes my cell phone in one hand and the jiggler keys in the other. I look around. The street isn’t deserted but it’s not crowded either, and even more important, I know the owner of the car is busy elsewhere.